I'm the first to admit I don't like much rap music live, except for like Mr. Lif or Sage Francis or whatever. Big rap shows are generally fucking awful. Either the tour manager fills in for Ludacris' guest spot or they only do a minute of a hit song or the loudness of the bass squashes all over sounds, or SOMETHING.

I've only seen two big rap shows Kanye West and the Beastie Boys and both put on great stadium shows.

I've seen Common twice in a club setting and he killed it both times, the first time he had a live full band and it was awesome, second time he had a partial band and partial programmed beats which was still pretty good.

now the first time I saw Common Talib Kweli opened and he was great, then I saw him open for the Beasties in a stadium and he completely fell flat.

Most rap and hip-hop sounds horrible live, especially in big concert halls... Something about playing the music off decks kinda makes the music sound shit. The only times I've appreciated live rap or hip-hop, they've had a full band playing everything.

Funny story.. 3 years ago? I went to the main capital police station to do some confrontation stuff (long, boring story). Imagine me, a white 6'4 guy sitting there waiting with my friend (who were just completly out of it due to nervousness) when 8 huge crips/bloods type goes comes in and occupies the remaining 8 chairs. They all went on their phones and starting talking about all kinds of suspicious things (throwing away briefcases, making passports..) and I just tried my hardest to not look anyone in the eyes and literally praying to get called in to just finish my business and get out of there.

We eventually got called in and when walking home we read in the papers that Snoop Dogg and Puff Daddy had been detained by the police when entering the country on narcotics charges and one could assume that we just sat next to a bunch of badass super g's and heard them talk about their operations..

It's such a surreal thing, but pretty much everyone has stories like that. A co-worker of mine spent a night in jail with Steve-O from Jackass when the cops did the same thing to him as they did to Snoop and another friend of mine tripped over a chair and accdently hit Timbaland in the face with a hotdog.

Weird celebrity encounters are pretty hilarious.

Have fun at the show though, it's going to be awesome, even if he's just way too mellow these days; Snoop still rips it up.

When I was in grade school, I ran track and won a race (Penn Relays for you Philly kids). I barfed right after the race, on someone's shoes. I look up, it's fucking Bill Cosby. He was coming over to say congratulations and I puked on his shoes. He laughed it off but 10 year old me was mortified.

both of these bands suck, and so did their previous ones, but I remember seeing tsunami bomb open for The Bouncing Souls a few years back, and watching what's her name shaking her ass around in tight jeans.